How to Create NFTs for Free and with No Expertise in IT
Did you know that anyone can create NFTs? Even if you don’t have special education or skills in the IT field!
Based on the information from the first article of the series, you know that NFT is a unique non-fungible token created on a blockchain. It can store any kind of information. You can easily create one token or an entire collection. Today, we will learn how to create NFTs on the OpenSea marketplace.
People use marketplaces such as OpenSea to buy, sell, gift, or bid on NFTs. They are also used to create individual NFTs or entire collections. The process of creating and placing NFTs in the marketplace is called minting.
To get started, you should choose what exactly you want to tokenize – a photo, a picture, a video, or any other media file. Next, you will need to get a decentralized wallet or connect an existing one to the marketplace. Today, it is possible to connect MetaMask, Coinbase, WalletConnect, and many other decentralized wallets to OpenSea.
Platforms that support NFT minting use the ERC-721 contract, an industry-standard way of formatting metadata. When creating a new NFT collection in OpenSea, you can choose the blockchain. On Opensea, it is possible to create a collection on the Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, and Klayton networks.
It is important to note that the creation of NFTs on the Ethereum network requires ETH in the wallet to pay for gas. Those who want to create a token for free should choose the Polygon network. Despite the high cost of gas per transaction, the Ethereum blockchain remains the most popular among NFT creators.
You may think that creating a collection of 10 000 unique NFTs is a very long and complicated process, but this is not the case.
Pictures for an avatar collection, such as BAYC, described in the second article in the series, are created using layers in any convenient graphics editor. These layers include the color shading of the image, the base image, and its attributes.
It takes forever to create 10 000 pictures manually! This is where programs such as the HashLips Art Engine come to the rescue. Such programs combine pre-prepared layers in a random order, thus generating a given number of unique images. In these programs, you can also set rarity parameters, indicating which attribute of the picture will be rare, and which will be unique. Applications also automatically generate JSON files – metadata that describes each image, which will later be saved as an NFT description.
Creating an NFT collection on OpenSea
Be careful, always check if you are using the official marketplace website, so as not to become a victim of scammers!
After connecting a decentralized wallet to OpenSea, you should go to the “My collections” section, where you’ll see the “Create a collection” option.
To create a collection, you must specify and upload the following information:
- collection logo;
- promo picture;
- collection banner;
- name;
- links to the collection and social networks;
- category (art, collectibles, sports…);
- creator wallet address;
- blockchain and cryptocurrency to pay for purchases.
The next step is to upload the media files to the collection.
After connecting the wallet, the platform will offer you to create your NFT in the “Create” section. To do this, you need to upload the media file you selected and provide the following information:
- name of the token;
- link;
- description;
- collection affiliation;
- attributes and their rarity;
- total supply (number of tokens in the collection);
- blockchain and cryptocurrency to pay for purchases.
You can also select the “Freeze metadata” option. In this case, the descriptions of the tokens will be stored on the blockchain and will not be subject to changing. Blockchain storage is the most reliable way to confirm the NFT authenticity and uniqueness.
Today, OpenSea allows uploading each file separately. But if you need to place an entire collection on the marketplace, you will have to resort to additional programs, such as NFT Bulk. It will develop a smart contract with the parameters you specify, and place the number of media files you need without extra effort.
After the minting is completed, you will see the address of the NFT contract and the token ID. Now, you can put it for sale. Choosing the platform to build your NFT comes down to personal choice, as well as the blockchain on which you want to list your token or NFT collection.
Soon you will have a unique opportunity to show off the acquired knowledge about non-fungible tokens, take a quiz and get NFT. Stay tuned for more news from WhiteBIT and WOO Network!
